Letters from Joseph Campbell to Toby Johnson
Toby's first letter to Joseph Campbell after the
Mann Ranch Seminar where Toby met Joe. This is a carbon copy.
When Campbell first arrived, he came to the kitchen for a glass of
water. There were a couple of work-scholars/staff members in the
kitchen cleaning up for the seminar. When we addressed him as "Dr.
Campbell," he replied "Call me Joe."
Joseph Campbell
replied April 27, 1971 with a long discussion of the nature of ego.
Joe replied June 25,
1971
to a letter from Toby about the upcoming summer of 1971, saying he
regretted not being free to return to the Mann Ranch a second time that
year. He opens replying to Toby's comments about freedom and
determinism.
Joe sent a postcard
August 26, 1971
from Hawaii, commenting on an "unrequited love" I had told him about.
This was probably with Brad Bell whom I met in Ukiah while I was
hitchhiking to the Mann Ranch and who subsequently moved to San
Francisco to crash at the house I was living in on 10th Ave and
Cabrillo with David Factor and other Univ of San Francisco students. I
wonder what I said about the star-crosserd little love-affair with Brad
Joe wrote Oct 27, 1971
commenting on my adventures hitchhiking from Chicago to San Francisco.
A soldier returning from Vietnam had picked up me and another guy
outside Chicago. We debated the war for several hours; I thought in a
friendly way. Outside Dubuque, he sent us in to a burger place to order
while he got gas. And then drove off with our belongings. Quite
distressing. One of the few things I kept because it was in my pocket
was a copy of The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha. And I read the
Bodhisattva Vow section.
Joe wrote July 19, 1972 responding
to my offer to drive up and Jean from the airport to the Mann Ranch,
saying he'd also been offered a ride by Dick Roberts, and regrets that
he has to choose. He commented sweetly "I love you both." Dick Roberts
drove a new convertible; I was driving a beat up old VW bug. Joe made
the better choice of vehicles.
Undated Christmas card.
This may be from 1972. It refers to a dinner at the Mann Ranch the
previous August.
Joe wrote Feb 13, 1973
replying to a letter in which I wrote I was doing my dissertation on
Nagarjuna and Eckhart, and commenting that sunyata is something not to
understand but to experience as ineffable. He writes that he'll
be in San Francisco and perhaps we'd see each other. I don't think we
did. I had lunch with him one time at the Clift Hotel, but I think it
was not this visit in 73.
Joe sent a postcard
summer of 1973 from Ireland saying he and Jean were off on a grand
adventure.
Joe wrote Nov 27, 1973
replying to a letter in which I described my plans for my dissertation
with the title The Myth of the Great Secret. He approved and
said he was interested in the "stages of life" I had described.
Joe responded Feb 1,
1974 to my sending him the first chapter of The Myth of the Great
Secret. This was probably the Preface titled Intimations.
Joe wrote on May 1,
1975 that
he'd just acquired an electric typewriter. And commented that he'd miss
me at the Mann Ranch in June. I was going to be starting the Psych Tech
training in Napa that year and apparently wasn't able to be in Ukiah
for his seminar.
Joe wrote on Nov 4,
1978
after a long hiatus in our correspondence after, I guess, I told him
about seeing a man who looked just like me--a doppelganger--during
Werner Erhard's est
training. By that time, the Mann Ranch Seminars had ended. Barbara
McClintock, who'd been on the organizers, had moved to Mill Valley and
taken a job at Dominican College. Joe gave several seminars there in a
program called "Reminding." I reconnected with him there as one of the
Reminding staff.
Joe wrote on Jan 10,
1979 mentioning my writing him more about est. I have a
chapter in the first edition of The Myth of the Great Secret
about est. It's available on this website: https://tobyjohnson.com/ipsesolus.html
Joe wrote on July 7,
1980
a wonderful letter in which he thanked me for bringing to his attention
ideas of the new age counterculture. He wrote that the secret is Tat
Tvam Asi.
I visited with my wise old man Joseph Campbell and his wife, Jean,
September 11, 1980, while I was in New York researching teenage
prostitution for the URSA study, told about in In Search of God in
the Sexual Underworld (now revised and renamed Finding God in
the Sexual Underworld.
I met them at the humble two-and-a-half room apartment, #14D, overlooking Sheridan Square and Christopher Street, in the high-rise
building they lived in at 135 Waverly Place (and had since they were
married in 1938). Then, over a casual dinner at a nearby Jamaican
restaurant on Avenue of the Americas, we discussed my work and adventures living in Times Square. Joe
certainly knew my personal concerns. I was always openly gay, even if
we never talked about my private life. And he was ever gracious and
welcoming.
On Nov 8, 1980 Joe
wrote apologizing for not yet getting to the galleys of The
Myth of the Great Secret I had sent him.
Sept 7, 1981 Joe wrote
apologizing again for not getting to the galleys of my book, saying he
is feeling his age, and saying that after being on Bill Moyers'
Journal, he had received more than 12,000 fan letters. I was living in
the woods at Southern Dharma Foundation outside Asheville, NC. In
October 81, I moved back to my hometown San Antonio.
May 25, 1982, Joe wrote one of
the nicest letters of all--about the book which he received after
publication. It begins: "The Myth of the Great Secret
is a jewel of a book. I have read it with great fascination…" He notes
my telling the story of the blank slide at the Mann Ranch.
December 1982, Joe
sent a Christmas card depicting the Japanese Dance of the Rice
Pudding Festival.
By that time, Joe and Jean had moved to Hawaii. I had moved to San
Antonio. I know I had a little more communication with Joe through
Barbara McClintock. In the mid-80s, she was working for the San
Francisco Jung Center. I talked with her on the phone occasionally. I
remember sending her a galleys copy of In Search of God in the
Sexual Underworld
to take to Joe when they had lunch together in New York. The book got
left at the foot of the table leg when they left. That would have been
in 1982. I imagine I wrote Joe about that book, but do not have a reply from him.
Barbara called me early in November 1987 to tell me Joe had died in
Hawaii. She had been present during his last days. (March 26, 1904 -
October 30, 1987, just shy of 84 years old.)
The inventory of the New York City Public Library's Joseph Campbell
Collection shows what must be the other side of this correspondence, my letters to Joe.
b. 170 f. 65 Johnson, Toby 1971-1983
Photocopied letter.
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